Originally Posted By: eugene molloy
"A father's advice" was written by Mark Beaufoy rather than Beauboy, and still carries some weight and resonance.

A while back I loaned a lightweight .410 to a young man for a season and a half. Before collecting it his dad made him learn the Beaufoy piece off by heart and recite it to me before collecting the gun. Young Matt shot his first driven pheasant with it on Beaters Day.



"Tum Tum" may well have been a roue, but for the years he was King proved to be rather a good and enlightened one in contrast to his absentee Ma who had been off her trolley for years. The way Victoria treated her children I'm surprised they didn't all turn out to be axe murderers; the odd legover incident seems pretty small beer.

Eug





Very nice- reminds me of what I read about the late American writer Ernest Hemingway's third son- Gregory- who was beating older men with his single shot /410 on doves, and on box bird live pigeons and even columbaire ones as well in Cuba- Well dress with good shooting clothes, good cap with visor for possible sun glare, shooting muffs, hand warmers- you can't shoot well if you are not comfortable- and as our Mark Twain once said so well- "Clothes make the man- and the lad as well"--I'm not a good enough wingshot to use a .410 or a 28 bore and kill cleanly-- so I use 12 bores with lighter loads--to each their own-

"The field is the touchstone of the man"..